J&R Customers Flock to the Electronics Store, Only to Find it Closed

When Caroline Treadwell needed directions from the city clerk’s office to a state office in downtown Manhattan, government workers handed her typed directions with three landmarks to follow: the Brooklyn Bridge, Pace University, and J&R Music and Computer World.

A worker removes J&R signage from the display windows Thursday.

Peter J. Smith for The Wall Street Journal

The New York native, visiting town to take care of adoption paperwork, decided to drop by the longtime retailer. “I just need a phone charger—I came from LA and I forgot it,” the 41-year-old said Thursday morning.

What she found, though were dozens disappointed shoppers pressed against J&R’s papered-over windows, unable to get the flatscreens, flash drives, CD players and instant camera film they needed so badly.

After 43 years on Park Row, across from City Hall, the popular retailer closed its last brick-and-mortar location to “reinvent” itself, according to a statement released by owners Joe and Rachelle Friedman. A planned reopening after renovations will be in 2015, they said.

Dedicated shoppers responses ranged from disappointment to disbelief.

“I wanted to see if I could get some flash drives, maybe a new computer bag,” said longtime customer Yolanda Lawrence, a marketer who’d detoured downtown when she heard about the closing, hoping to score discounts.

J&R didn’t immediately return calls and emails for comment about the closure, but some customers said they’d been expecting.

“It was clear for at least six months to a year what was going on,” said lawyer Matthew Kaufman, who bought a pair of Audio-Technica headphones for hisPanasonic portable tape player at the store 1981 and had been looking for a Wi-Fi adapter when he stopped by on Thursday.

The planned renovations to J&R, which the company said could be ready in 2015.

www.jr.com

By 11 a.m., the Staples supply store across the street had a worker out handing out fliers to would-be J&R shoppers with discount offers of its own. Some buyers, like Michael Wartella, a music video animator in urgent need of a specialized piece of equipment, headed for nearby mom-and-pop shop K&M.

But other loyal customers were left at a loss.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do,” said Mike Tartanella, 49, who’d had his heart set on Fuji instant camera film. “Unless I find the time to go to B&H, I’m” out of luck, he said.

A message was posted on the store and on J&R’s web site, with images of the first store and its planned 2015 renovation.

‘This entire Lower Manhattan area is changing dramatically, finally ready to blossom” after rebuilding from the September 11, 2001 attacks, the sign read.

“As part of these evolutions, we too have to continue to adapt to the technology, retailing, and real estate trends and reinvent ourselves,” the sign read, saying that they will turn the store into “an unprecedented retailing concept and social mecca.”